Local News

County Express could resume senior trips busing

By Jenni Grubbs

Times Staff Writer

Posted:
11/08/2013 03:53:29 PM MST

H.J. Greenwood, executive director of the Northeast Colorado Association of Local Governments, explains to the Fort Morgan City Council Tuesday night the reasons why NECALG stopped offering bus service to the city for recreational trips, like those through the Fort Morgan Senior Center. That situation could change in 2014, though, he said. (Jenni Grubbs / Fort Morgan Times)

FORT MORGAN — — Providing senior trips may get more affordable again before long for both the city and the passengers, the Fort Morgan City Council heard at Tuesday night.

Northeast Colorado Association of Local Governments Executive Director H.J. Greenwood took the council through why County Express was forced to stop providing transportation for those trips about a year ago, what had been done toward fixing that, and what was currently happening.

Fort Morgan's program that offers seniors (and others) trips to fancy restaurants, shows and casinos took a sizable hit when County Express was no longer able to provide the charter/group transportation service to the city.

That action was caused, Greenwood said, by an internal auditor finding legal problems with a nonprofit, government-funded transportation system potentially competing unfairly with private charter businesses.

Another thing Greenwood brought up was that the about $8,000 that the city contributes to County Express annually goes toward matching a little more than $427,000 in federal transit money for the on-demand bus service provided throughout the Northeast Colorado Transit Authority's six-county area; it's not for charter service, which is funded through a separate pool of donations and fees for services.

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Greenwood also told the council that County Express provided almost 17,000 on-demand trips in and around Fort Morgan in 2012. The $8,000 from the city went toward being able to offer those rides, which included almost 8,800 related to education.

The charter trips through County Express began around 2009 when now-retired NECALG Executive Director Larry Worth obtained a grant to purchase a large coach.

"It seemed fairly clear that there was a big demand throughout our six counties for groups to go everywhere in the region, as well as out of the region, and there simply was no other resource out here to provide that source," Greenwood said. "We got the large coach and the trips flowed fairly well."

While the auditor brought up the possible legal conflict of this system, Worth thought he had found a loophole, due to the trips being for seniors and part of the funding for County Express coming from federal money for programs to benefit seniors.

After Worth retired and Greenwood moved up, the Colorado Department of Transportation advised Greenwood no such loophole existed.

"That was when the service that was kind of limping along kind of got pulled back," Greenwood told the council, apologizing for any problems this caused with trips that already had been planned and then had to find other transportation sources. He said this was not intentional.

But he also told the council that things could turn around soon.

Greenwood said he had been "working through the red tape" and "it appears we have found the appropriate niche that we can again provide these services."

Yet he cautioned that the process was not yet certain, and NECALG and County Express would need to work more with the Federal Transit Administration and CDOT.

"Essentially, because we do receive federal funding, we have to make sure we're not taking business away from private enterprise," Greenwood said.

Under new guidelines, group or charter trips lined up through a nonprofit, like County Express, would need to be registered on a national website, and then potentially charter businesses could claim the opportunity to provide the trip, instead of the nonprofit. But there was still much to be figured out about the specifics of this process, Greenwood said.

Still, he said he hopeful that County Express would be able to help provide senior trips for Fort Morgan "by the end of the year."

Fort Morgan City Manager Jeff Wells thanked Greenwood for clarifying the situation and where things stood.

"We really appreciate the relationship we have with NECALG and County Express because they do a lot for our community and for our seniors," Wells said.

That includes the transportation to the Fort Morgan Senior Center for lunchtime meals and the rides provided to the seniors for medical appointments and other things.

"Our only concern was a lot of our senior trips were coordinated through County Express," he said.

When that stopped, the city found out the trips were no longer affordable, as the private coaches were far more expensive, causing them to cost more for the city, which then had to charge the seniors more, Wells said.

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